Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to the Westland Planning Commission meeting for Wednesday, 11/19/2025. Can we please call the meeting to order and call the roll?

Alright. Commissioner Jones?

Here.

Commissioner Evans? I am present.

Commissioner Watten? Here. Commissioner Schulte Hillen?

Here.

Vice chair Wilwotny? Here. And chair Metlin?

Here. Okay. With that, we'll move to public comment related to land use items not on the agenda. Do we have any comments that are not related to the agenda items?

We do not.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. Next is approval of meeting notes from 08:20, 09/17, and 10:15. Do any commissioners have any notes on the notes or suggested changes? I would also entertain a motion to approve. Yes. Commissioner.

I've reviewed all of them, and I move to approve all three meetings.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Great. Let's call the vote.

Alright. Commissioner

Jones. Abstain. Commissioner Evans.

Yes.

Commissioner Schulte Hillen. Yes. Commissioner Watten.

Yes.

Vice chair, Wolwotney?

Yes.

And chair Matlin?

Yes. Okay. That moves us to our main item for tonight, which is a public hearing for CUP dash 25Dash01 slash d r Dash25Dash01, a proposal for a conditional use permit and class two design review for a food card pod with new dining structure and tap room at 1553 11th Street. So with that, good evening. Tonight, we are holding a public hearing regarding application number CUP25DashO1SlashDRDash25Dash01 for a conditional use permit in class two design review at 1553 11th Street.

The proposal is for an eight unit food cart pod, new dining restroom structure, and a tap room in an existing building. This is a quasi judicial decision. Unlike in legislative hearings, where personal opinion may come into play, quasi judicial rulings must be grounded in the relevant code. And, if the application meets the code, the commission must approve it. The hearing will proceed as follows. After the preliminary legal matters, staff will make a presentation followed by the applicant. Then anyone who wishes to address the issue will be given the opportunity. Finally, there will be time for rebuttal by the applicant. The applicant will have twenty minutes initially plus ten minutes for rebuttal. All requests to speak during public testimony have been received.

Commission members may ask questions of the applicant, staff, or anyone else who testifies. If participating remotely, please remember to use your hand icon if you wish to ask questions. Please keep yourself on mute until you are ready to speak so everyone is heard clearly. Now I call the to order the public hearing, and I will ask the city attorney to cover the preliminary legal matters.

Thank you, chair Medlin. The applicant because this is a quasi judicial land use application, the applicant has the burden of proving that the application is consistent with the city's community development code, comprehensive plan, and any other applicable municipal code provisions. Criteria that must be addressed at this hearing for this application include chapter 59, Willamette Neighborhood Mixed Use Transitional Zone, chapter 34, accessory structures, ADUs and accessory uses Chapter 44, fences Chapter 46, off street parking Chapter 48, egress and circulation Chapter 55, design review Chapter 60, conditional uses Chapter 96, street improvement construction Chapter 99, procedures for decision making, quasi judicial decision quasi judicial decisions, and that's it. Unless somebody has identified something that we missed. As the planning commission is sitting in a quasi judicial capacity, any testimony, again, any testimony, argument, or evidence that anyone presents must be directed at the approval standards or some other criteria in the code that you believe should apply to this application.

If your testimony would be repetitious, it's already been stated, but you would still like the opportunity to appeal the decision, you must have signed the sign in testimony form. Only those people who have, quote, appeared before the planning commission in person or in writing standing to appeal the planning commission's decision to the city council. So signing in the testimony form gives you that appearance for appeal purposes. Prior to the conclusion of the first public hearing on an application, the applicant or frankly anyone who participates in the hearing may request to continuance or ask that the record be held open to present additional information. If there is such a request, the Planning Commission will either continue to the public hearing to a date certain in the future or leave the record open for at least seven days for additional written evidence or argument.

I would note that failure to raise an issue before the Planning Commission or if it goes up to the City Council to the City Council prohibits an appeal on that issue to the Land Use Board of Appeals. It's called raise it or waive it. Raise your issues now. Insufficient detail to give people an opportunity to respond. General comments about things probably are not enough.

You have to provide some detail if you have a concern or an issue. As far as the applicant is concerned, failure to raise constitutional or other issues regarding the proposed conditions of approval, again in enough detail to allow people an opportunity to respond prohibits an action for damages in circuit court. So again, for the applicant, raise it or waive it applies to the conditions of approval. Moving back to the commission, do any members of the Planning Commission wish to declare potential or actual conflict of interest or bias? Seeing none, do any members of the Planning Commission wish to report any site visits or ex party contacts?

Seeing none, does anyone wish to challenge a Planning Commissioner's ability to sit in this hearing and participate in the decision? Seeing no objections, Chair Mettler, that concludes the legal matters. I'll return this to you.

Great. Thank you. With that, let's go ahead and proceed to the staff presentation.

Good evening, Chair Mettlin, members of the Planning Commission. Darren Wise, Principal Planner with the city for the record. I've got a presentation to run through the proposal for you this evening. Sorry, my clicker is not working. Oh, there we go.

Alright, excellent. Alright, so again we're here for a quasi judicial public hearing on a conditional use permit and a class two design review for a food cart pod proposal. It's proposed in two phases. Phase one being the food carts, the new dining structure and restrooms. And then phase two, a converted commercial space into a tap room which the application applicant has provided that it would happen probably within a year of the phase one incomplete.

The decision before the planning commission tonight, you can approve the application with the staff recommended conditions of approval. There were six recommended conditions of approval. You can approve it with modified conditions or you could deny the application. So some general information about the site and the proposal. It's 1553EleventhAvenue.

It's right at the corner of Willamette Falls Drive and 11th Street, sorry, Street not Avenue. The site is about point point five acres. It's got mixed use zoning on it. Again, it's a two phase proposal. There are existing buildings on the site.

Two buildings, total about 48, almost 4,900 square feet. One building sits by itself and currently contains a pool and spa supply business. And the other building is a mixed use building and has commercial spaces in it and an apartment. They're separated from one another. The proposal would add one new structure to the site, seven sixty eight square foot dining structure with restrooms that would supply the necessary number of restrooms from the building code for the food cart pod dining experience there.

There are existing parking spaces on-site, four in total. Those are dedicated for the pool and spa supply business in the rear corner of the property. There are currently two access drives from Willamette Falls Drive. They sort of go in a in a loop. The proposal has the West Western Most Access Drive closing.

And then there's conditions in the in the proposal that staff has applied to make improvements to the Eastern Most Drive. That includes five bicycle parking spaces and a number of landscaping improvements as part of the proposal. So here's an aerial of the site and the surroundings. Again, it's the corner of 11th Street and Willamette Falls Drive, sort of across from the youth music project just down from the new roundabout at 10th Street there. Here's a closer view of the property as you can see the pool and spa supply company in the building back in the corner.

And then the mixed use commercial mixed use building with the commercial spaces in the apartment, which is further further forward from the other building closer to Wyoming Falls Drive. And that space between the mixed use building and Wyoming Falls Drive would be where the food cart pod and dining structure would go. So here's the existing zoning, it's in that Willamette neighborhood mixed use transitional zone. The property to the east is in the same zone and holds commercial businesses. Properties to the west across 11th Street are commercial and across the street is general commercial zoning also.

The property behind the existing mixed use building and sort of to the side of the pool and spa business is a residential R-ten. So it's a residential structure there. So again, it's proposed in two phases. Phase one details would be the eat food carts, each would have individual water, sanitary sewer, natural gas lines. The new dining structure again, 768 square feet.

We have roll up garage doors, seating area inside, an ADA bathroom and a standard bathroom on the backside of it, and then a drink service area on the inside. The image to the right there shows what the structure would look like. There's also outdoor seating areas, primarily picnic tables, again five bicycle parking spaces, a new refuse recycling enclosure, and a new landscaping associated with phase one. Here's an image of what the site would look like at the end of phase one. You see the recycling refuse recycling enclosure sort of across the drive there on the right side of the screen.

Brown sort of the small brown area at the bottom of the screen would be where the tap room goes in phase two and the eight food carts in the dining structure. As you can see there's an entrance from the corner of Willamette Falls Drive and 11th Street also coming down into the food cart. Here's here's the drawings of the of the dining structure, what it would look like. Again, it's got roll up garage doors on the front and both sides with some additional glazing on on the sides. Then the rear of the building, the bottom right image there shows the access to the two restrooms, the 188 restroom and one standard restroom.

And then proposed phase two details again it would be converting an existing space in that mixed use building into a tap room, approximately 900 square nine twenty square feet. Again the image on the right shows some seating inside, there would be a bar and then also an additional bathroom would be included inside the tap room itself. Again there's existing parking spaces on-site, three standard spaces and one ADA space. These were these will remain for the pool spa supply business. And then there's again six conditions that staff is recommending to be included if this is approved and they would be satisfied prior to occupancy in the phase one.

Again, here's an overall site plan for the entire site including phase two. Again, it shows the tap room there on the bottom, the drive coming in from the right side of the photo there that comes down to the parking spaces for the pool and spa business, and we will get into the drive and some conditions associated with that here in a second. So All I'm going to move on to the applicable criteria unless the commissioners have any questions about the proposal at this point. Alright. I will just move through the applicable criteria.

So again it is in that Willamette Neighborhood mixed use transitional zone, which is chapter 59 of the community development code, eating and drinking establishments which that use is consistent with food carts and a tap room requires a conditional use permit in this zone as hence the reason we're here tonight. The setbacks in the zone, the height, lot coverage, and floor area ratio have all been met with this proposal. The zone limits commercial uses to 6AM to 10PM. The applicant's proposal is 11AM to 8PM Monday through Thursday, 11AM to 10PM on a Friday and Saturday, so it meets that code criteria. Chapter 34, accessory structures.

This was something that was discussed with the building building folks. Since the new dining structure restrooms are required per building code, we could not define it as an accessory structure, so it could not be exempt from design review, hence the reason it's got a design review attached to it also. Chapter 44 fences. So the commercial building code requires a three foot six inch fence height on elevation differences over 30 inches. So there's several spots on the site where there's a retaining wall where there will be a fence on top of it, which requires that three foot six inch fence.

It's a post and cable fence, so it's it's a see through fence. The applicant is proposing maintaining that three foot six inch height for consistency around the entire food cart pod. The maximum fence height in a front yard is three feet. So staff is recommending the Planning Commission permits that six inch increase under its authority in community development code sixty thousand seventy thousand and twelve, which is part of the conditional use chapter, which we will get to here in a second. So it does give the Planning Commission authority to regulate fences through that through that code section.

So since it's a six inch increase and it's a see through fence, it seems to make sense to allow the continuous height around the project. And then Chapter 46 is parking, loading and reservoir areas. So again proposing no new spaces. Our code currently does not require any parking minimums for development in the city. Again, but the three existing 180 space will remain for the pool spa business and they meet the dimensional requirements for parking spaces.

No loading space is required. Forty six-one hundred fifty A four and nine address excess drive safety. So staff is recommending a condition of approval, conditional approval three in the staff report to expand that posting cable fence. Currently the proposal shows it ending at the food cart closest to the drive access and we're recommending a condition to extend that all the way to the tap room to create a safety barrier separation between the cars coming into the pool and spa supply business and folks that would be walking around the food cart pod and grabbing food and drinks at the tap room. So that's one of the proposed conditions of approval.

And again, they're supplying five bicycle spaces which meets the code requirements. 25% are required to be covered and they're actually going to cover 50% over 50% of them. All right. So chapter 48, access, egress and circulation. There was a letter from Greenlight Engineering showing that it would have forty nine PM peak hour trips to the food cart pod and no increase in vehicles over 20,000 pounds, no increase of 10 or more trips for those vehicles.

So a full transportation impact analysis was not required. So again, the proposal was to close the West Access Drive from Willamette Falls Drive. Noncommercial uses in our code require 20 foot 24 foot access drive for two way traffic. It's probably hard to see, but the little drawing on the on the right side there, there's a red line that I've put on the drawing there. So that's showing that the there's a condition to require the applicant to expand the 18 foot eight inch driveway to 24 feet to meet our code and then have that fence, that post and rail, sorry, post and cable fence separate the drive all the way to the tap room there to create that separation, safety separation and also expand the driveway to meet our code requirements.

To allison Valley Fire and Rescue, the applicant submitted the plan to fire district and received the service provider permit from them for adequate fire access to the site. All right. So just a couple more to go here. Chapter 54 landscaping, 9,000 square feet of development area. The code requires 20% of the site to be landscaped.

They're proposing just over 20%, 1,820 square feet of landscaping with irrigation which meets our good requirements. Then chapter 55 design review, again, the new building meets the facade transparency standards. They're going to close that West Access Drive. There's a condition of approval to remove the driveway apron that is currently there and install matching curb and pavers for what what the existing improvements look like along with Lama Falls Drive. And again, that's a that's a recommended condition of approval by staff.

The site will be it's mostly gravel right now outside of the concrete drive aisles. The gravel will be turned into permeable pavers or pervious pavement. There's gonna be some signs on the buildings, but they're going to submit for sign permits in the future. It's not part of this application. And then the refuse recycling enclosure requires a curb and landscaping around it.

The applicant did not show this in their drawing, so again another recommended condition of approval. The code requires a continuous curb landscape area at least three feet in width on on the sides and rear of an enclosure and over 36 inches continuous hedge. So staff is recommending that condition of approval six gets included if if the proposal is approved. And then the big part of the the application is the, again, Chapter 60 conditional uses. This is a conditional use permit.

So the Planning Commission has the authority to evaluate the site size and dimensions and characteristics associated with the use, the overall benefit to the city, whether there's adequate public facilities. And then the CDC 60,070 C allows the Planning Commission to impose conditions on on an approval related to the hours, days, place, and manner of operation, additional setbacks or limiting height of structures, designating the size, number and design of access ways, exacting intersection improvements, landscape additional landscaping and screening conditions, again limiting location, intensity of outdoor lighting, and then mandating the size, height, location and materials for fences. Again, goes back to that three foot six inch fence comment I made earlier. It allows the Planning Commission has the authority to allow that. All right.

Last two, Chapter 96, street improvement construction. So again, there's condition of approval five to remove the drive aisle on that West Drive or driveway apron, I'm sorry, and then restore the curb and pavers and sidewalk to the to the matching conditions. And then chapter 99 is again the procedures for decision making. The applicant attended a pre op conference on January 16, had their neighborhood meeting back in June, and all notice and requirements were met and that can be found in exhibit PC three of the staff report. Alright.

Here's the staff recommended conditions of approval. Again, I'm not going to read these verbatim, but the first two are the standard site plan and engineering standards. The third one is that service drive barriers, that cable rail fence back to the tap room. Four is the service drive width, so making the service drive 24 feet, closing that driveway approach, and then installing that curb and pavers to match. And then sixth one is that refuse recycling enclosure about the three foot continuous curb landscape area and the hedge maintained at 36 inches.

Alright. With that I will entertain any questions or go back to any of the slides if you want to see any of the images.

Commissioner Evans.

Thank you chair. Thank you for your presentation there Mr. Weiss. Hey just there were two items on your presentation near the end that I wasn't really tracking based upon what you were saying. You had indicated something about TVFR, and I wasn't sure in what you were saying. Could you maybe follow-up with that or just reexpain for me please?

Yep. Yeah. So Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue are are the fire district service providers here for the city. And they have they have a standard service provider permit that they that we have applicants send in their plans and then TVF and R for free reviews them and sends them back comments of how how to meet the fires fire stand their their own standards for being able to access a site and fight a fire. So the applicant submitted their plans and TVF and R signed off on them saying there was adequate fire access to the site.

Okay. Thank you for that. And then as part of the conditional use you had indicated that the staff was recommending increasing the drive from 18 feet to 24 feet.

That's correct. Our code for a non residential access drive, to a commercial structure, commercial businesses or industrial businesses, mixed use businesses requires a 24 foot access drive for two way traffic. And since the drive is having traffic entering and exiting makes it a two way. So we're just recommending that drive gets widened to 24 feet to meet our meet our current code standards.

And

so that part of the Community Development Code, is that for new construction or is that if you would you apply that same standard for an existing structure? It seems like what I'm saying is that there's an existing building there that already has an 18 foot. In what am I thinking that why wouldn't this be just something that's grandfathered in as part of an existing?

Yes, so typically when a site redevelops we try to get it into compliance with the code at the time. So that's that's the reason we're recommending it but you know again the Planning Commission is the decision maker decision maker and has the authority to not impose that condition if you don't feel it's it's necessary to the safety of the site.

I appreciate your thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Commissioners, do have any other questions? Commissioner Volhetny. Thank you, Chair.

Darren, I'm trying to figure out why there's a signed permit in the in the future rather than with this application.

We sorry. City staff when when the application was first submitted and the incompleteness letter went out asked for them to submit a sign permit and they just said they would do it later. So that's a question you can ask the applicant why they why they want to do it at a later time but either way we would get the sign permit for them.

It just seems inconsistent with what we've done in with other commercial entities. The sign goes with the building or with the the commercial operation. So I'm just confused as to why the signage is being put off till the future.

That's a question for them please.

I guess I have another question that's probably for the applicant. Thanks.

Commissioner Shelton Hillen.

The hours of operation of the pool and spa business that will remain operational and open, Is there any overlap with the proposed food cart pod? Do you happen to know?

I do not and I would I would direct that question to the applicant.

Okay. Was just curious in terms of I mean the service I'm gonna make sure I have the terminology correct. The service drive barrier that's going to be extended to keep the people kind of safe and corralled within the appropriate space. It's also to deter kind of parking or the parking is going to be reserved for visitors of the pool and spa business. Correct? It's not open to use by?

That's that's my understanding. Yes.

Okay.

Again, a good question for the applicant.

Okay. Thank you.

Mister Olavotny? Thank you, chair.

I do have one other question. I noticed on the drawing, the building that would be converted into the tap room in the future, It appears that there are I think there were two doorways, at least one doorway that that goes out onto what looks like the handicap parking area. And I'm trying to figure that out and that access kind of seems a little problematic if it's being used for loading and unloading supplies for the tap room and blocking potential for blocking the handicap parking space.

Lynn, can you pull up the See if we can go back to the site plan. Okay. Good. Sorry. Go back a couple more.

One more. Oh, the other other direction. Sorry. I think this I think this is what Commissioner Mobotny is referring to. Yeah so that hashed out space is actually not part of the of the handicapped parking space. If Lynn if you can go to one more slide back where hopefully it shows the whole parking area. Yeah. Sorry. I'm I don't have control of the clicker here. There it is.

So the the kid the that hashed out area, the larger area is not part of the of the ADA parking space. It's the hashed area on the other side that is the the ADA space. But that that would be a good question for the applicant also. What that what that hash basis is is referring to?

Just the way it looked I thought either side was for handicap access and if someone pulls up with a van with right hand access it's going to be right in that cross hatched area.

Yes, yes that's good observation.

Mr. Jones.

Thank you, Chair. Question, do we know the three available parking sides on the right side of the picture we're looking at, are those for customers or do we think they're for staff or for employees?

Again a good question for the applicant. I don't know. I just know they're associated with the pool and spa business.

Thank you.

Any last questions for staff? Okay, looks like that was it. So let's go on and move to the applicant's presentation. Call up the applicant, and they have twenty minutes. There should be a green light that turns on.

Thank you. My name is Jessica Iceland. I'm with Iceland Architects, and I am the architect for the project. I apologize, David Lawrence is the project owner and I think he was a little confused with the time so he should be here shortly and we'll be able to answer questions as well. I'd like to just do a brief introduction to the project beyond what Darren has said.

First of all, I'd like to emphasize that this project, this development is being developed by a local business owner. David Lawrence has been he's owned this site and operated his business there for the last thirty five years. And the objective of the development is for him to develop a business that he and his family can manage and operate, you know, for the long term future on this property. So the site is currently underutilized, it's been developed like this for a while but it's mostly been a vacant, mostly vacant property. And I think there's a need to increase the vitality and the activity on this site and I think something here would serve as a nice anchor for that east sort of northeast end of Willamette Falls Drive which I think it would create a nice entrance into the Willamette District.

No And speak of the devil, this is David Lawrence the property owner. I just got started David. Another thing that we're trying to do here is we're utilizing a low impact development. Darren mentioned that we're using either permeable pavers or pervious concrete to in the areas where there's going to be seating, outdoor seating in the food carts. And so I think he's trying to do the right thing.

Again, he feels a great sense of sort of ownership of ownership for the businesses that he's developed there now and what he wants to do. So I'd like to address a couple of the concerns that have been brought forward during like the neighborhood meetings. One is as usual is parking and I we totally understand that and are sympathetic to the needs of of the residents. But I'd to address the fact that the climate friendly equitable communities act has basically made parking not required, and the reason for this is to try to encourage pedestrian activity, and I think the Willamette neighborhood is one of the best examples of how that has been successful. And this this neighborhood you know from what it was ten years ago has changed significantly and it's vibrant and it's active and everybody wants to go there and be there.

So I know that for some people that's not necessarily a positive thing but I think for the majority of people it's really seen as a success story for this neighborhood. The other thing about the parking is it is located at the East End Of Willamette Falls Drive where it is less dense than some of the areas in the central area and there won't be access to the site from 11th Street so that there will be access off Willamette Falls Drive and the corner. So we're hoping that that will also discourage people from trying to park on 11th Street and access the site. The other issue that's been brought up is that of noise and higher levels of activity on the site. And I think in that sense the site lends itself well to this kind of development.

All of the activity, the outdoor eating activity, the dining room is located along Willamette Falls Drive so it's similar to the other uses the outdoor sidewalk cafes and things that you see along Willamette Falls Drive. And there's roughly 60 feet or in excess of 60 feet of separation from where the proposed activity will occur to the residential neighborhoods to the south. I think that will help. The other thing is there is an existing apartment on-site and that apartment will house a family member of David's, his son who will actually act as the permanent on-site supervisor for the site. So he'll be there if things get too loud or too active.

Mean he'll just be there to supervise it. He will also be just managing all the business facilities of the site. So in summary I just wanted to say that the purpose of this or the goal of this is to create a small scale sort of a neighborhood community meeting place. And based on the size of the eight food carts, I think that's what we'll have and that's what we're trying to do. I think it's compatible with and complementary to all the other businesses along Willamette Falls Drive that are so successful.

I think this development will actually improve the aesthetics of the lot. We're increasing the landscaping, we're treating the storm water on-site. I think we're trying to do things that will actually benefit this site and the community. And it will increase you know the value of other businesses and properties in the neighborhood. So with that in conclusion I did want to mention three items, three of the conditions of approval that we would like the Planning Commission to maybe discuss and consider.

One is the service area barrier that Darren mentioned of extending the curb and fencing along basically to separate the tap room parking and the site. And we would suggest or ask that we be able to extend the curb so the curb would come around that landscape area in the center. But we feel that the addition of the fencing would actually add congestion to the site. And I think leaving it open leaves us with opportunity for potential like events like in if you know on a weekend if we want to have some kind of activity and the spa business gets you know closes down for that day then we can utilize and access the whole site. And in terms of the protection David has constructed some nice mahogany like 42 inch wide planters that will be permanent other than move with a pallet jack that he's planning to locate to block the street and the access so that vehicles cannot encroach on that pedestrian area.

So that's the one thing. The second thing is the widening of the driveway to 24 feet and we recognize that that's the code standard. This driveway has been, it's just 18 foot eight inches and it's been that way. And it's really there's some symmetry with the surfaces on the site with the concrete, semi circular concrete driveway. And so we'd like to keep it that way.

The fact that the pool and spa business is so small, the occurrence of vehicles coming onto that site is quite limited and as David will attest to, it's very rare that you have a car coming and going at the same time. And the visibility is clear if we move that we end up having to lose a food cart potentially modifying that existing I think it's a laurel hedge that's on the east side of the property. It just gets very tight to that. So that's again, recognize that that's not the standard but we just ask that maybe you consider that as an option. And then the last thing is permanently closing the Western Driveway, which and I meant to mention this with parking I apologize.

With the blocking of that Western Driveway we will be able to strike for three additional parking spaces. So by closing that driveway we'll get three additional parking spaces on the street which will hopefully help with some of the congestion and we've talked about whether those might be like short term fifteen minute parking spaces for those people who maybe want to come to the food carts and get something and go. But leaving the driveway blocked with those planters, those semi permanent planters would allow for the limited access of the food carts. So when they're coming in and going or we have a grease trap that's on the site there access to that for servicing. That would simplify and be advantageous to that.

So we just hope that you might consider that whether that needs to be permanently closed. That concludes our presentation. I don't know if you would like me to clarify some of the questions that you had about the parking spaces now or should I wait to another time?

You have time if you would like on the clock.

Well I would just say so the large so we have the handicap, the accessible parking space and the required access aisle. The large parking or striped area next to the building is just an area that they basically striped off so that people would not park there just because there are doors and accesses so that's been striped for quite some time and it's basically just to try to discourage anyone from the pool and spa business from parking in that area. And then the three parking spaces that are there are just general parking, they're not identified for staff or for customers or for the employees. Again, I've been there fair amount and it's rare that there are any parking spaces there David. Don't know if you have, can you address like how many staff are working at the pool and spa business?

There's one person there. So there might be that one car is the car that parks on-site.

Can you repeat that testimony?

Can that you

testimony? It wasn't picked up on our broadcast. The employees of

That concludes our presentation. So unless we have questions now, we'll move on to whatever you have next.

Alright. Commissioner Evans.

Thank you, Chair. Mr. Lawrence, I'm just curious, do you own the entirety of the property that's in question? Thank you. That's all I have to say. Mr.

Watton?

Can you leave that back up there? Sorry, Lynn. Thank you. So you were you were asking to not vacate the the West entrance. Is it so I mean, let me back up. So the first thing you were talking about was get maybe possibly getting away from what the city's proposing with regards to the fence kinda dividing. You you had said maybe a curb instead. What did you say exactly?

Yes. What I would suggest or hope that we would be allowed to do is extending the curb down from Willamette Falls Drive along the food cart and to that portion of the semi circle that covers the landscape area there. So there would be a curb there. And there's there's that landscape area which will also provide separation from the parking driveway to the seating area, but not extend that any curb or fencing over. So David has has suggested building he has these like 42 inch planters.

And basically, he can set those anywhere. And he was saying he could set those basically to block off that driveway so no cars could get into that seating area. But, again, I and we just figured that there's a chance that, you know, there might be some event, a community event or something where we he might wanna utilize the whole site, close it off, and have, you know, free flowing pedestrian passage through that site.

Okay. So so then the the West Access, what's what's the what's the interest in keeping that active?

The the the benefit to the site would be, right now, those food cart pods to move them in and out. We could still go around around the driveway to the Eastern Access, but if we could they don't move very frequently, but if if we're getting a new cart, the ability to move it in and out of that driveway would be much easier than pulling it around the site. The other thing is in that western driveway, you can see that little there's a there's a little box. That's where we would locate the underground grease trap, and that gets serviced probably once a month or something like that. So they have to have the ability for somebody They could, you know, they may be able to get a a hose that goes that far, but to have the ability for them to back up and clean out that grease trap would be beneficial.

So yeah. Okay. That makes sense. And my concern is is that obvious that we all of a sudden, it's allowed that people are picking up food to go or something and they're they're using that as a u shaped access through people's you know, just cars and people. That's that was my that's my only question. That's that's what I was asking about.

Right. And if you if you look at in the driveway, we've shown like Yeah. There are trees. And those would be those semi permanent Yep. Barricades. So there would not be potential for a vehicle to drive in onto the site there.

So so a question for kind of daily use on those the parking that's that's there. And I'm looking at the scale of this and is it if if the fence were to go in as the city's recommending, do you envision that these parking places would need you'd need to back all the way out? Or do you mean, is there a hammerhead enough space to for someone to be able to do this based on what the scale here?

Well, based on what I've seen in the last year since pooling spots has been in there, people they have enough room to back up and pull out.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Commissioner Evans.

Thank you, Chair. I beat you, Gary. Is it possible that or maybe your intent that during non operational hours of the pool and spa that you would then close off for vehicle access to the site? Is it I guess maybe back up and re ask it a different way. Do you envision that during business hours vehicles will go back there?

In

general. So I guess what I'm asking is, I think what the city if I'm just guessing here that the city is seeing is a possibility of somebody pulling in there and then trying to utilize that entirety for parking or for getting in and out with their vehicle. Is there a way to prevent vehicle access? Is it your I guess was it your intent that vehicle access can get to the place outside of the pool and spa? But you know from

I haven't thought about that. That

So your signs would be out front on Walnut Falls Drive that says no parking?

Well,

I think that's what I'm envisioning the city has concerns with the people who are wanting to utilize the services that you're offering coming in over their vehicle, and then that's why they're suggesting a barrier to prevent people from coming through. So maybe if you offered an alternative to that, like you're going to say put no parking signs out front, maybe things of that nature that would prevent the need for barrier. I can see that being an issue, people driving in there with a vehicle and then going, oh, how the heck do I get out of here?

So what you're saying is maybe put some sort of barrier across the to the

and spa

house driveway half the hours?

That would be a thought that I would I might suggest, yes.

I think to clarify, so if a vehicle comes in and wants to park there, they'll see the signs so they'll know in the future that's not supposed to be parking for the food cart parts. But there is room for vehicles to pull in and to do a turn on the site and then exit the site in a forward motion. And so even if we put up a barrier

I think what you're you're oversimplifying people and vehicles. Maybe. I I agree with your premise that, yes, there's plenty of room and, yes, people shouldn't do that. But I think your lowest common denominator is.

Some sort of a sign out in front the entrance there, some sort of a sign saying

No parking. Yeah. Because I think that's your intent is no food cart patrons are gonna park back there.

Yeah. That is it.

And if you don't put some my vision is if you don't put something out there, people will definitely want to park out there. Thank you, Chair, and thank you.

Mr. Jones.

Thank you, Chair. So I'm sure you've compared and have expectations of the existing food cart that's just down the road. What are you expecting or what have you seen as maximum amount of cars that are being used for the existing food cart facility? How many, like, you know, as you were looking at this design, I'm sure you looked down and said, okay, there's this many cars that we're seeing taking up space there.

Question because a lot of people walk there. I've been to a lot of different and the Oregon City,

it's really hard to see what their parking issues were because you don't

know if they're going

if they're parking walking

to there or parking and walking into another.

It's not a question. We don't know I don't

think everybody that's parking up there

Understood. What are you seeing as your maximum capacity when you're at full operation? Understand you can't differentiate between parking and pedestrian. What do you see as your maximum capacity of people there in phase one?

Tables by four, let's say.

Yeah. Was just looking at the based on the number of tables, I think you're probably looking at around a 100 would be a maximum, and that would be if you go to most food or any food carts, it's maybe at at peak time they'll be close to full. But people that's the thing thing about food carts too is people don't usually stay as long as they might in other places. But based on the number of tables, it's going to be around a 100 would be the maximum.

Thank you.

To clarify with your change in you you don't want to block off that Western Access. Are you suggesting to leave the curb cut then so that you could have trucks come in? Okay.

Yes.

Because that might complicate having parking spots there. So you actually wouldn't gain the three parking spots.

You're right. And I don't know if that might be something where you could potentially put removable bollards along the curb line or in that paver line. We haven't really, you know, we haven't determined what would make the most sense. That's why we were just hoping that we could have a discussion and the planning commission would consider that.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for that? Yeah. Go ahead. Commissioner Walton.

You, chair. I'm just gonna go back to the seating that we were talking about. One of the things that I noticed is that there's maybe about 25 of the seating that's actually undercover. I mean not, I mean the layout of the tables may not be exactly what it is, but considering the weather around here, what do you think how do you think that's going to play out in fall, winter, spring, six months of the year?

There's going to be a few buildings that are available. There's I think there's 30 available in this in this building, in the Western Building, in the in the tap room. It was maybe 32 or something. There'd be There'd be enough undercover eating areas for most periods. Imagine when it's really, really busy that people are going to sit at the tables where there's an umbrella.

It's Okay. Okay.

The new building, the 768 square foot building, there's a refreshment area. Are you planning on serving alcohol?

Beer and wine

and cans and bottles.

Okay. It

will be a small bar.

Okay and then the phase two will be the full tap room. Right. Okay. Okay, just getting an idea because of permitting for alcohol service or at least when the garage went in, they had to have a permanent structure for alcohol service so, okay. You know if we could come back to the sign permit and indicating that that's in the future. That's

I

haven't seen that before and I can't remember the requirements. I mean usually when we have permit application come in for a commercial use, signage is part and parcel of the application. So I'm just if you can talk about that and why you would wait until the some point in the future for signage.

Well, can address it because actually for projects that we work on it's quite frequently left one because it's a separate a whole separate process and quite honestly the timing of getting your design review or conditional use approval in is it sometimes is premature to to come up with the sign design and that's why we often leave it because oftentimes the actual project name hasn't been decided and, you know, logos, you know, branding, that kind of stuff. We haven't had time to really address that, and that's why we typically or frequently leave the sign. We we show it on there. We try to show it on there just to get an idea of where that sign is planning to go. That sometimes bites us because jurisdictions may make us take it off because we aren't applying for a sign permit, so we usually just note it as sign location under separate permit.

But that's that's the only reason that we are not including it right now.

So I guess a follow-up question to that is, you know, with with the food carts going in front of the the decking office and and pool and spa is, you know, way at the back of the lot. Those those businesses in particular, would they be included in the signage for the food carts as well? That

Yeah. So there will be so currently, the pool and spa business has a freestanding sign that's right on Willamette Falls Drive. And so that will the idea is that that would be retained or or relocated under under permit, but that would be there'd be a separate sign for the pool and spa business. I think they have something on the building as well. And so the signage for the 11th Street food park would be on the building, I think, as we've shown it on the elevations. So and then a small sign we have shown on the tap room above the door since it's an affiliated business, and we would just have two small building mounted signs.

I think that's all I have right now.

Commissioner Evans.

Thank you, chair. What is your plan to address the your existing business, the decking business as far as how people access the site for the decking business? Because it looks like right now everybody parks in the front for your decking business.

Decking business is no longer going to have a sign there.

But you still utilize the building as a decking business?

Say it again?

You still utilize that building as your decking business, correct? So usage of that business is going away as well? Fair enough. Alright. Thank you.

Any other questions for the applicant? K. Not seeing any. Thank you. Alright. We will now move to public testimony. So as I mentioned at the beginning of this meeting, if you wish to testify during this hearing, complete please complete a sign in testimony form and submit it to the staff. When your name is called, please come forward and state your name and city of residence for the record. Each commenter has five minutes to testify. You'll see the little clocks here.

The neighborhood association representative will have ten minutes. If you have any written material or other evidence you'd like us to see, please hand it to staff. The staff will distribute it to the members of the commission and the applicant as well as place it in the record. At the end of your testimony, commissioners may ask questions. Please keep your responses brief and to the point. With that, the first speaker is, Kathy Hilicky.

We can't hear we can't hear her.

Did you press your button? Can you hear?

Cathy No

no he can't hear. Try the other.

Kathy Halleke? Yes. Willamette Neighborhood Association president. I would like to bring to your attention several of the concerns about this project that were brought forth both at the pre app and at the Willamette Neighborhood Association meeting with the developer. The number one is the nonexistent parking.

You have eight plus vendors, no parking, and no parking for the patrons. So how are said vendors supposed to get to their job and get into the podcast, their food carts, and where are they supposed to park their vehicle that may even have supplies in it that they have to get to their food cart? That was one. Most oh, and most of the vendors do not live in West Linn alone in the Willamette area. How are deliveries to be handled?

No parking spaces for deliveries. We already see double parking on Malama Falls Drive for deliveries with some of the ICON deliveries. Potential added time, oh this was a huge one, potential added time for first responders to get to their emergencies due to traffic and congestion and lack of parking. Both the fire department and the police department exit out onto Willamette Falls Drive off of 12th. The Willamette Neighborhood Association is very concerned about the potential detrimental effect this project may have on existing businesses both those that are thriving and those that are struggling.

And we do have several that are struggling. Being so close to A, a preschool, B, a daycare, and C, an elementary school, the noise level during operations is of concern. Children need quiet to learn. Also troubling is having these children in such close proximity to alcohol use. Drivers can be under the influence at any time of day.

Why add this safety issue so close to so many children? There is already an issue with the planter on 11th in front of this project. The planter juts out making the width of 11th narrow. Now adding parked cars is going to turn this into a one lane, so only one car at a time can get through that intersection. Think of the school buses trying to get in and no car can get out at the same time. So please take these concerns seriously. We don't feel that these concerns have been addressed. Please delay approving or denying this project until these concerns have been addressed. Thank you for your consideration, Kathy Halligan. Any questions?

Not seeing any. Thank you for your testimony. Next, I'd like to call Beau Geneau.

What was her name?

Beau Geneau, city of West Linn. Thank you for your time. Just because you aren't required to provide something doesn't mean it isn't a good idea to provide it. Doing the smart thing isn't always required by law, but it's still the smart thing to do. When we threw the parking requirements away, we were assured it would be in the developer's best interest to provide parking, and yet here we are not being provided any parking.

It is also due to the closeness of this property to the roundabout. This intersection already has traffic issues. Adding this much retail without providing a single parking space is asking for a disaster and is extremely shortsighted. It is also an affront to the neighbors who have repeatedly raised these concerns regarding parking and the roundabout. For these reasons, I urge you to not support this project. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. I'd like to now call Lance Finifarc.

Hi. I'm Lance Finifarc. I live in West Linn. My family and I, we've lived in Willamette for about nine years. Our current residence for six years, which is right within the same block of this development.

What we've seen with the garage, which we love by the way, we can walk to everything on Malema, that's why we moved here. What we've seen though is at peak times, you know, the neighbors around that area are impacted, you know, two to three blocks away from there for people trying to find parking. Where we're at on 10th Street, there's just not the parking there and we know people historically go there when there's parades, when there's events, they line up there, they line up on 5th Avenue. And both of these streets, none of them have continuous sidewalks along the stretch. On 10th Street, there's a private drive access to the daycare, which children are constantly walking in and out, you know, all throughout the day from seven a.

M. Until five p. M. That's 100 feet east of this development. A 100 foot or 200 feet to the North Southwest is the elementary school, which also serves as the daycare. There are kids walking back and forth on these streets all the time. 5th Avenue doesn't have a continuous sidewalk from one end to the other. And these are fairly narrow streets, they're not lighted very well this time of year when it's getting dark at 04:30. There's going to be severe visibility issues with added traffic and potentially drunk driving considerations. So we have some concerns about that.

If there's eight food carts, I mean, I'm assuming there's two people, two employees per food cart. So that's 16 people coming in, where do they park, plus all the patrons who aren't local and can't walk. So we have some concerns about that. I think that sums it up pretty well for our standpoint. We think there's some things that need to be addressed and worked out.

And as it is, it's been mentioned by others, Willamette Falls Traffic Circle is right here. It gets backed up routinely at the rush hour, 03:00 till 06:00 at least. So that's gridlocked and a lot of people and 2 05 is gridlocked. And what happens is you have a lot of people taking the back roads, cutting through 5th Avenue around the schools, cars driving by 20 mile an hour speed limit streets at 35, 40 mile an hour trying to beat the traffic. So there's some existing safety concerns that are already a problem and I think this is going to make it worse unless there's a lot of planning that can address it.

So that's all I have.

Commissioner Jones.

Hi, so first off, do you have children who go to the school? Yes. Or the daycare? Okay. Have you ever observed or picked up your child from the school or has your family picked up children from the school?

Yes.

Have you observed a lot of parents picking up their children through with vehicles?

The majority, I'd say maybe fifty fifty is by vehicle.

Okay. So describe to me because I don't know. Sure. What is the congestion lookup around pickup time?

At the day care, it's it's kinda spaced out, but it is a one way one way private drive to get in and out. One of the big problems that has occurred when there's other things going on, so if if you get to if you get parking on both sides of 10th Street, you have a big visibility visibility issue coming in and going out of that private driveway. It's a it's a sharp it's a sharp t there's not much of a curve into that or out of it. And it also it makes it impossible to have two way traffic on 10th Street. You get two lines of cars, it's really only one way. So that creates a big congestion issue.

How is there usually a line of cars waiting to pick up children? Is there, you know, give us a sense of like what it looks like.

Not typically at the daycare, There's usually

Oh, no. Not the day care. The school. Yes. And how is that in conjunction with the existing buses that are moving students?

So our kids attend the preschool, which lets out at 12:30. So I'm not usually watching what happens after that. I do know that there's an increased amount of traffic, you know, around 03:30 you know which conflicts you know the pickup of parents and cars, school buses and the start the early rush hour does create some fairly some conditions on the streets that can be very hazardous. We've almost been run over a dozen times at marked crosswalks in full daylight because people aren't paying attention or don't see us. And so it's the more cars creates an issue.

For you to be on the record you need to state your name and city of residence. Hold on one second is there any other thing legally?

No that that's what I was gonna say. We need people need to we're recording all of this, so you need to declare who you are, address, all of that.

Okay. Apologies. Janette Olson. I live on 1553 10th Street. So I'm the one who normally does the pickup and drop off of our kids most of the time. If we're talking about the school, so, you know, those streets during pickup and backup and pickup and drop off are back to back, you know, with people parking already along the streets. So my concern is where are people going? Parents aren't going to be able to get their children safely, and at the same time, we're adding alcohol into that scene. Our street's on 10th Street, so people are taking the detour around the roundabout. They're going already very pass very fast past the school, almost running over people, which there's not two sides two side sidewalks.

They're coming down 5th and then coming down 10th, and it gets so backed up that our street is has already has cars back to back just waiting to get back onto the freeway. We add another parking people parking just because we're the close one of the closest blocks to get to the food trucks. There's gonna be head on collisions. I was just in one. I'm deadly scared about our children and our neighborhoods. I'm all in support of local businesses, but this is not safe. You know, unless there's some parking hidden parking garage or some plan, we can't just say, hey. We'll figure it out. People are gonna walk. People do not walk.

I know most of my neighbors, they walk down this they hop in their car when it's raining. They're not gonna walk there. We do it. I've a couple of Fridays ago, my girlfriend and I went to the food trucks. We just on the other side of the city, and we it took us about twenty minutes just to find parking. We had to go two to three blocks away just to find it. People were parking in neighbors' yards. I saw that neighbors had to put blocks and stones up just to avoid having people park in their lawns that they pay taxes on for that. So, you while I do wanna support this local business, I think this is to a detriment in the location being close to an elementary and a preschool. We're just putting our children and our next generation at risk.

And if I can ask a follow-up of again, this is something outside of my scope of being able to observe. Does the school have after school, or are there a lot of sports activities that take their after school? And if so, like, what kind or what are their hours, and, you know, what does the congestion look like then?

I can't speak to the specifics of it, but what I will say is there are parents and kids at that school all day long, you know, all throughout, and there are after school activities. And typically, people are already parking on that street, and there's limited parking. For me, if I were you know, right now, it's hard for me to walk. I still wouldn't even drive because it would take me longer to go a block and a half and look for a parking spot to find a spot as it is. So there's just isn't a you know, adequate parking to be able to support this establishment, unfortunately.

What I would ask is, you know, before approving this, I beg, is please go at, you know, during, you know, the operating hours of the school, and I would also go and go, you know, during rush hour, and you will see what we're talking about and why, you know, our neighbors all wanna be here, but they have kids. We're lucky enough to have our parents watching our kids tonight so we could be here to speak on their behalf.

Thank

you. But please please please check it out. I beg you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Evans.

Thank you, chair. Just one second pretty please.

I'm sorry.

Quite alright. My question is have you reached out to the city or the local police department to indicate that there are issues with traffic bypassing the natural thoroughfare and speeding down the local roads?

We in the past I feel like we go ahead.

Did put in a petition for a lighted crosswalk, one or more of them, I believe, with the city, and it was denied based on, I believe, the speed limit, which is not usually observed.

Have you guys reached out to the police department indicating that there's issues with speeders running down your city, your streets?

My mom has spoken with them, and at one point, they did put a cop on our street, which did slow traffic temporarily. But unfortunately, you know, there has been some kids that have there's been close calls, you know, with people speeding around the corner. I've almost personally been hit multiple times. So but I my mom has had somebody go and sit out there, but you'd have to have somebody sitting out there, which would, again, block people from going and picking up their kids at the day care as well.

Yep. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you.

Alright next I'd to call Paul Ream.

This one hopefully it's working. Is this one working? Excellent. My name is Paul Ryan, thanks for allowing us to speak today. I live on 11th Street so I can answer any and all questions about the school that you may have. I see that school all day. I work remotely quite a lot so I'm able to observe what's happening there.

Could you speak up a little bit?

Sure. I would support everything that the last set of people mentioned when they were speaking about the traffic areas around the school. I can tell you that pickup is quite an event at that school. It's a large one and a lot of the parents do pick up their kids in their cars. I don't know how many what what the breakdown is.

There are times when the buses who line up in front of the school do have difficulties turning, trying to make the corner. If there's a car parked in a particular way on the side of the street, that bus is gonna have a little bit of trouble getting around. They have to some kind of a special arrangement, maybe having the car over here back up a little bit. But it is a challenge for the buses sometimes. And one of the things I wanted to bring out tonight that that happens on a regular basis is the is the number of children who attend that school and have attended that school in the past.

They all go back there to play in the playground in the parking lot. They're coming from all over the place. And they're driving their bikes, and they're walking, and they're riding their scooters. And when those scooters are electric and when those bikes are electric, they're moving fast. And if you've got people who aren't familiar with the area, who don't know about all those kids in the area, and who are trying to find a parking spot, who are trying to back into or parallel park on the street, and they don't know about those kids flying around, that that is a bit of a recipe for disaster.

If they've had a few drinks, it just makes it a little bit worse. So I think one of the biggest concerns that I have in general is the proximity to the school. I don't think this has been addressed in any of the planning that we've seen and none of the documents talk about that very much. I think that if you look at the traffic analysis by green light, they don't even mention the school I believe. I don't know I don't know if they if they actually went to the site to see what the circumstances were, to see what the parking is like there, to see what the traffic jam is like between 03:30 and 06:00 or so.

I don't know if they saw that firsthand. I don't know if they know about the proximity of the school. It's not really in their letter of analysis that they attended the area to see the specifics of it. They could have gone down four blocks to suit the other food cart pod to observe what was happening down there. They would have gotten a sense of what parking was like there and what traffic was like there, but I don't see any indication in their letter that they were able to look at that very similar situation in order to make their analysis.

When you when you appraise a house, you try to find houses as close by as possible that are very similar to the house you're trying to value and you use those as comps. We have a great comp or they had a great comp that they could have used. I don't know what they did. I'm concerned that the school parking lot might become overflow parking for the food cart pod because that's only a block away and it's pretty attractive, big parking lot. And if you've got the people who are doing the drinking then going to, you know, back their cars out and you've got the kids playing all over the place, it's not good.

I have a concern about the existing restaurants in the area. Restaurant business doesn't have a lot of profit margins margins can be kind of lean. Sometimes those restaurants can struggle to to keep afloat. And currently, there's 10 or 11 restaurants or or or, you know, bars in that area just up and down that street within four or five blocks. And then down below, of course, there's the McMinnamons and there's our Italian restaurant down there, a sushi place, and the Papa Murphy's.

That doesn't include the food cart pod that's four blocks away. So that's in addition to all these restaurants. I would submit that this area is pretty saturated with restaurants, and I don't know that we want those veteran rooted restaurants to to perhaps experience this kind of competition. You know, we've got a bunch of tiny, tiny restaurants on wheels that aren't part of our community. These other places have been around for a long time. They survived the pandemic. They've survived this and that. They've been part of our community. And I think we should appreciate them and respect them and not provide as much competition, sort of a light fast, you know, low cost competition right down the street. We already have one of those, four blocks up the road.

I think that's, respectfully, think miss Isslin might be wrong about people not parking on 11th Street. She says that because the entrance is in some other part of the food cart pod parking or, I don't know, facility that people won't park on 11th Street. They certainly will park on 11th Street. It is natural for them to park on 11th Street. They will take a left. They will see the food cart pod after coming around the roundabout. They go to the food cart pod, they're gonna take a left and there's no gonna be no parking on the street. And they're gonna go down 11th Street and they're gonna park somewhere down there. And they're go down farther because there's not gonna be enough parking on simply the one block, so they're gonna have to park in the other blocks. I think that the idea of having this many, I mean, the number of a 100 people was frightening to me.

I didn't think it was going to be that high. If you've got that many people, you know, they're gonna be sharing cars. And I would also echo the idea that people don't walk as much. People drive. People come down from Barrington Heights. People come down from the top of the hill to go to the Willamette dining areas, to the restaurants and that kind of thing. And they're they're not walking down, they're driving down. That roundabout is difficult for people to deal with efficiently on the best of days. If you've got a bunch of people who are going across the street, a bunch more pedestrian traffic, and we're talking about 100 people. Pedestrian traffic, that's gonna cause more stoppage.

It's gonna cause more difficulty in people getting around the roundabout. And if you've got cars who are actually parked in the street in front of this and they are backing out into the rush hour traffic and I picked up my son from middle school tonight. The traffic was from that roundabout all the way to the other end of Downtown Willamette, just a stream of cars, all trying to escape 205 of course. But if you got people who are trying to back out, that's gonna make that traffic much worse. It's gonna make the roundabout more difficult.

And if you also got the people who are parked on 11th and then back in deeper into the neighborhood, they're all gonna have to come out. And if they're coming out during that rush hour traffic, then they're all going to create even more of a bottleneck. It's correct that people do a loop around down 10th, up 5th and then up 11th. To say nothing to the people who are coming up over Peace Mountain and coming down 6th Street to get to 11th to get back up in order to avoid 205. This might be a topic for another meeting Sunday.

I think the whole idea of the two zero five traffic and the problems we're having with that. I have fifty four seconds left, so I want to talk about a few things that matter to me. I have the property that's right on the abuts this proposed development. And the noise, I'm worried about that. I've got two kids and their bedrooms face that face that food cart area, which is, I mean, respectfully, it's gonna be essentially a beer garden at times. I don't necessarily want my kids to have to have that kind of noise especially up till 10:00 at night. People are over there on Friday and Saturday nights, I don't want that kind of noise. That's that's a subjective thing. I have two dogs. They play in my backyard a lot.

There's rodents that are being attracted by the garbage and the extra food. Maybe they get poisoned. Maybe that's how that rodent problem is controlled. Hopefully it's controlled. I don't want the rodents going to my backyard and then my dogs, you know, maybe get poisoned from them. Those are the that's the amount of time I have. I have other issues of course, but I think that's what I wanted to cover primarily. Any questions? I'd love to answer them.

Commissioner Jones. I did. I just wanted to make sure I wanted to hear this that you were saying during peak traffic hours that traffic would extend to Downtown Willamette Pass. Can you define what that means? That's a very general term that

It is. There are really bad days and they're normal days. And tonight, for example, my the traffic was backed up, you know, no spaces between cars, moving a bit.

I'm sorry. A little louder if

you can. No no space between the cars. It was backed up to nearly the other food cart pod on the other end of town. So that's that's a that was just a normal normal evening about 05:00. And sometimes, I don't know what situations are going on out there, but sometimes the traffic will back up on 11th Street, which makes no sense of all at all because those aren't those aren't neighbor people. I don't know where they're coming from necessarily, But that'll back up onto 11th Street and then it'll get stopped when it's trying to turn right onto Willamette Falls Drive to then access the roundabout and then get back on 205 or potentially just go down Willamette Falls Drive and try to escape over the bridge into Oregon City.

Okay.

You. Thank you.

Commissioner Schulte Helen.

Oh, yeah. I just have a few questions. Thanks for your testimony, Paul. I am I have a few questions for you, actually. Just for clarification, you said the local kids play in the parking lot of the primary school. Is that what you were indicating? Yes.

I'm talking about the primary school. There was a larger playground there, obviously, and they play in the playground, they hang out in the parking lot, and then, of course, they play in the the the neighborhood around there. They're always moving around. They're going back and forth from McDonald's or whatever

Okay.

Back to the playground to get refreshments or whatever, I guess.

Okay. I guess my question is I am not a resident of that neighborhood, but in my experience going to the garage garages, I would expect the most traffic, both foot traffic and kind of vehicle traffic to, you know, frequent and visit the food carts would not necessarily be at the times when either well, perhaps when the nursery school is letting out. But I'm trying to figure out the correlation between the traffic going to and from this proposed food cart pod and the pickup drop off times of the primary school. Can you explain that to me? I would expect it to be closer to lunch and then dinner and not necessarily mid afternoon.

I I I agree that the the drop off time is early in the morning, obviously. That's I think this development is not even open at that point. It is the proposed hours were eleven to eight during the week and then eleven to 10:00 on Fridays and Saturdays. So the pickup time, they would be open at that point. I don't really know what the business would be at that time. But that's that's there was a question that was asked about pick up and drop off and what that was like then, and that's the explanation I wanted to provide as well as the other the other parties this evening. But I think the important part of that is that the kids who are playing in the area, they have no hours. They're playing at all times of the day and night. They don't get there. They're not out there at 10:00.

A few of the high schoolers are out there at 10:00 at night. But for the most part, they're out there till dark and, know, after dark.

Thank you. Thank you. I have one more of a comment. No. No. You're okay. I have a form from Ian Brown, but it says you do not wish to speak. Is that correct? Or do you wish to

Actually, I think.

You do wish to speak? Yeah. Please come up. Can you start with your name and

Brown. Just my really brief comment is that my primary concern with this proposal is noise. It's going to be primarily outdoor seating for eating and drinking and for extended hours. And one thing that the the applicant has said is that hours are gonna be limited to 8PM on weeknights, 10PM weekend nights, Fridays and Saturdays. The proposed conditions of approval do not include a time limitation.

And, you know, the noise impact is going to be significant regardless of of whether the, you know, they're they're going to be limited to 8PM or limited to 10PM or allowed to operate beyond those hours. But adding that as a condition of approval, if you feel compelled to approve the project, might mitigate the noise noise concerns somewhat. Of course, I mean, you know, the noise noise requires buffering and the the applicant has has proposed that the existing buildings are going to provide sufficient buffering. But the the buildings don't they they don't block the entire the entire site. And so I I'm not convinced that the the proposed buffering is is sufficient.

And of course, the traffic concerns are are serious. Not only the the number of cars coming around, but the noise of the cars, the lights of the cars, so forth. So with that, that that's the only comment I have. Any questions?

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. All right. We'll now move on to rebuttal by the applicant. Does the applicant wish to respond?

And you'll have ten minutes.

One of the things I wanted to point out was that, you know, the what I'd like to see here is is a really nice nicely landscaped park like setting and I'm really confident that the landscape architect has put together a really nice plan. I just wanted to reiterate that that, you know, this instead of building a big building or apartments or something else in that space, I think this is a wonderful way to use that space and be the entrance to wonderful city. So that's what I had to say but also wanted to say that it'd be really nice to have more opportunities for high school age kids to have a job. And so I think by having this that'll you know give kids of that age some places to work. Did you have anything?

I'd like to just acknowledge again that we respect and appreciate the concerns particularly about parking and noise. Based on what we've heard, there are some concerns and issues that exist now without this development. Clearly, we're not going to fix those, but on the other hand, I don't feel that this particular development should be responsible for fixing all of the issues that may exist. I feel like some of the things that were mentioned whether it's illegal parking, you know, drinking are issues that should be addressed. There are other venues to address them, whether it's the police department, the city.

I don't feel that I don't anticipate that this is going to be a lot of drinking, I mean there's eight food carts and there's going to be one small area that will serve drinks or small tap room that will house maybe 30 people. So I don't feel that that's going to be a significant issue. And again, the whole idea the way that the state is moving is to try to enhance neighborhoods by encouraging non vehicular transportation and pedestrian activity. And it's painful, it is painful, but I think that's that there's a lot of positives to be seen from that and if we make it a little bit painful which people are experiencing now, I think it will encourage people to do more walking. And that's that is the objective of the CFEC and and you know whether you look at this neighborhood or Sellwood or Northwest Portland, That's they're trying to encourage.

And that's I think in that sense it's compatible. And I would just say that with this development we are complying with the requirements of the code. And in fact potentially adding some additional parking on the street, somebody was asking about deliveries if we had those parking spaces that were short term, they could be utilized by patrons during lunch and dinner services and they could be utilized by vendors early morning hours for deliveries. Think that's typically like all of the other businesses or many of the other businesses in this area have the same issues that they have to deal with. And it's you know, you take care of that by providing you know access and getting to the site in off peak hours so that you can get to the site and get your deliveries made.

One other thing, it's it's I've been at that corner for thirty five years so I've seen a lot of coming and goings and it's amazing you know being out there and working on the site seeing the amount of people walking with their pets and we're also gonna try to make this really pet friendly so people can feel comfortable about bringing their pets. But this the fact is that there's a lot of lot of people walking. I mean, it's amazing how many people walk that. So I'm encouraged to know that, you know, that there's gonna be more people walking to it than driving to it even though that, you know, there's gonna be people driving to it. But it's just amazing how many people use that road for for walking.

Thank you. We have a question for you though, Commissioner Evans.

Thank you chair. Just one clarification question, and I it's just my fault for misunderstanding your application. Is it your intent that Phase 2 Tap Room will be in an existing building and renovated that?

Yes.

I apologize. My understanding was that it was new and so I just want to clarify that. Thank you for that clarification.

Commissioner Jones. Thank you chair. There's a lot of good here, but there's also some questions. One of the ones, it was referenced in the notes that it that we're bumping or we're also dealing with the 2016 transportation system plan for the city of Westland? Was that something that you were aware of or working with at all?

I am not familiar with the specific specifics of that code and how that pertains to the the the design criteria.

Okay. Then I'll defer it to when we're talking to staff. But thank you. I I I hear very much what you're saying about, you know, you're in the positives encouraging non vehicle, not using cars and that's very, very pro, etcetera. But you know, unfortunately, this particular area is a choke point for 205, for Ethy, for the Willamette School, and for 43. And that is something that still is, I think, we're still in conversation today about.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. That moves us on to continuances. Are there any requests for continuances from anyone? K. I am not seeing any. So let's go ahead and move on to questions. Oh, wait. What am I doing here? Somebody help me. Move directly to questions to staff. There we go. I have to follow along. Questions to staff. Does staff have any further comments or clarifications regarding this application?

I would just say that the the condition of approval around the fence being extended sorry, the fence being extended to the tap room was was focused on the safety features in the code chapter forty six one fifty a four and nine. So that was the reason the fence was proposed there, but a curb and planters could suffice that suffice I suppose but that was the that was the it was for safety reasons. The cross cross pollination of the cars backing out of the parking spaces and the pedestrians or patrons coming in out of the tap room and moving over to the food carts.

Okay. Any questions for staff? Commissioner Wolotney.

Thank you, chair. I keep coming back to the fact that this is a mixed use transition zone. And the reason we're seeking this condition of approval is is to justify having an eating establishment in a mixed use area that otherwise would not be would not be there. So I'm just trying to understand how, you know, obviously the applicant came in with an idea, but I'm trying to understand staff's reasoning for I'm not gonna say you pushed it forward, but that you was there cautioning of the applicant to the requirements that, you know, this is a mixed use transition zone and this isn't the typical business establishment in the area?

So the mixed the Chapter 59 Willamette Neighborhood mixed use transitional zone, a conditional use in the zone is an eating and drinking establishment. So under the code, applicant has the right to bring forward an application for an eating and drinking establishment. They brought the forward application brought the application forward. We did a completeness check on it. We did the application complete. We're here tonight before the Planning Commission for a decision. So yes, it's it's a conditional use permit in the zone and a class two design review and it's a decision by the Planning Commission.

Okay. Thank you.

Think we're on to Commissioner Jones. Yes or no? Yes.

So the question I had, thank you, Chair, about the transportation system plan that was referenced in the documents we were supplied And looking at the I gotta zoom out. When I'm looking at the West Linn page, it's referring to oh, I wanna get the exact wording. It am I reading this right? That it looks like what it sounds like the parking is going to bleed into, the kind of bleeds into what's labeled on this map as high priority pedestrian project. As and that it's current that the majority of it's in the medium priority pedestrian project.

And it looks like a lot of it it will start to bleed into the high priority pedestrian project. And can you explain what those terms mean?

So I do not have the the transportation system plan in front of me, but I'm I'm imagining you're looking at proposed projects in the plan, which the project was probably the improvements along Willamette Falls Drive which have been completed, which was the whole entire streetscape change with the with the angled parking, the widened sidewalks in the in the cycle track. I I can only I can only guess that's what you're referring to. Priority high priority projects, medium priority projects.

It was referenced in the documents saying that this is income or you know, that it was referencing the it it it was a just a one sentence reference to in the staff report of that it was in compliance of the of the 2016 or the transportation Westland Transportation System Plan or the 2013 bikes and something plan. And when I pulled that up, it looks like the map says, well, this one's medium density, this one's high density or high priority, And looking to what that means, because I'm not sure what high pedestrian priority means in this context.

Do you have a reference to the Yes. Step finding or page number of the

I think it was page 46 of that one piece of paper. No. Just just one sec. No. Wasn't staff report.

Actually, think it was the updated

application.

Where was 46? Just look at the page of 46 on everything.

Is it page 46 of the the Planning Commission packet that was sent out?

It wasn't the staff report. Let's go. 46. I just had to dig to find and pull it up to even get to it.

I think it's the CUP25Dash01 underscore applicant underscore submittal .p d f. It's part of the Yeah. If you go to the

on the application. But it it, yeah, we can ask for a continuance or whatever if we need to go back to it. But it said that it it stated that it was in compliance with this the Westland transportation. And when I pulled that up, I went to the document and pulled it up, the document appears to suggest that it's also going from a medium

Chair Mettlin.

Priority pedestrian to a high priority pedestrian. And I'm trying to see clarity of what does that mean Alright.

Chair chair Mettland, I I would suggest the five minute recess so I can see what commissioner Jones is looking at, maybe answer his question.

Yeah. Let's do that. Let's do a five minute recess. Alright. We turn at, whatever, five minutes from now is 07:58.

Alright. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome back everyone. I'll turn it over

to Where'd you find the candy at?

What? 45 Page? Oh, yeah. Darren. Alright.

Thank you, chair Mettler. So I I conferred with commissioner Jones and he is looking at the 2016 transportation system plan, the pedestrian the pedestrian plan projects where the transportation system plan, again, just for a little background, looks at the city as a our system of the city, and comes up with recommendations on motor vehicle projects like intersection improvements, left turn lanes, in order to make the system function better. It looks at pedestrian projects in order for folks to safely walk around the community. So it identifies areas where new sidewalks or new trails need to be installed and puts them into the document and same with bicycle bicycle projects. So commissioner Jones was looking at the projects down in the Willamette area where there were medium and high priority projects located and was asking the question of whether or not that meant it was high pedestrian safety corridors or not, but it's it's really looking at projects that the city prioritized.

These are as high or medium. And and the project that commissioner Jones was looking at is the Willamette Falls Drive improvements that were done that widen the sidewalks, put in the angle parking, you know, five years ago, four or five years ago, whenever that was. So anyhow, that's that's that's the the projects that commissioner Jones was looking at. And hopefully that clears up the the question for you.

But it was referenced in the documents that this was a plan being used as a reference point. But yes, thank you.

Yes. Yeah. There there there may be a code criteria about conformance with the transportation system plan and that's that's probably why the the applicant referenced the document.

Commissioner Evans?

Thank you, Chair. Mr. Weiss, forgive my ignorance here, and I'm just seeking clarification. So this commission is tasked with reviewing conditional use permit application as the community development code allows for this zoning area. Is that what I'm understanding?

Yes. So the the the city is is parsed out into different zones across the city from residential zones to commercial zones to mixed use zones to industrial zones. Each of those zones have permitted uses, so you're permitted outright to have that use in the zone. There's permitted uses under prescribed conditions, so you are outright permitted to do something if you meet these other conditions. And then there are conditional uses.

And conditional uses are are typically identified in cities as uses that could could fit into that zone, but with some maybe some extra special care, like increased setbacks, reduced building heights, increased buffering. And and it's usually a more subjective consideration as as far as the decision making process, and it's typically a planning commission. In this case, West Linn does the same thing. So that chapter 60 of the community development code, which I referenced in my presentation, and in the staff report, starts on about page 32 exactly. Those are the those are sort of the parameters that the Planning Commission can operate under in conditioning and approval of the project.

And I would say specifically look at the starting on Page 34, where there's several there's 13 listed areas where the the Planning Commission can restrict or confine the the use or the approval through conditions. And again, there's stuff about noise, limiting the hours, days, place, and manner of operation, designating asset access points. There's a number of different things that the Planning Commission has the authority to condition the the approval on under. And, you know, always good to list the reasoning you're doing it so we can get that into the final decision order.

Again, apologies for my ignorance there and appreciate the clarification. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Commissioner Hallotney.

Thank you, Chair. Thinking about hours of operation. I'm trying to recall the hours of operation for the garage, the other food cart pod. And it seems that they close at 09:00 on weekends. Do you do you happen to remember I

I do not know.

According to the website, it's 8PM. 8PM.

Okay. And on weekends.

Later on the weekends, 10PM.

Yeah. Who's got a computer right there?

So to answer your question, Commissioner Wabotny, the weekends are ten p. M. On Saturdays, and Fridays Friday Thursdays, nine according to the Google. And this is not necessarily always accurate, but Sundays at eight

Thank you.

Any other questions for staff? Darren, I do have one question with the curb cuts. I assume if we allowed them to leave that curb cut, we couldn't put parking spots there. Or is there because that's the city doing that. Yeah?

So the yeah. So the recommendation was to close that close that access us if there if there was gonna be parking placed in front of it. But, no, if the if the Commission feels that the curb cut could stay and put some kind of a barrier up we could we could we could work that out with engineering as to what that would be. I'm assume I'm assuming you're referencing that West Driveway.

Yeah. So I'm just, you know, everyone's bringing up parking. And if there's an opportunity to block it off, still have three extra parking spots, it doesn't obviously help you with a 100 people. But it does produce something, especially if they're talking about an option like fifteen minute parking so people could run-in and out or if it was loading zone parking or something for the food carts. Like, there's lots of options, right, that you could play with with that space. That's really the only space there is in this design.

Yeah. So yeah, that that was the intent was to the condition would restore the curb to create that, you know, separation of again parking space versus pedestrian space and then stripe it for as many parking spaces as can fit in that area which we believe three can fit in there.

Thank you. Commissioner Watney.

Thank you chair. A question about the location and proximity to preschool and then also Willamette primary school. I'm trying to remember,

it may

be in municipal code, but I can't remember if there's something in the CDC that as far as distance, minimum distance from a school for operations that are businesses that are that are selling alcohol on-site.

Is

there such a code?

There is no there is no restriction on

the

proximity to a school in our in our code.

Okay. Thank you.

I actually do have a question just looking at the maps Darren. Is that day care used to have access through where the roundabout is now. So that was blocked off and so now it's all back channels for that traffic. Yeah.

That's correct. As part of as part of the streetscape improvements in the roundabout installation, there was an alley, an alley created to the to the rear of those properties and actually the applicant, mister Lawrence's property, the corner of 10th And Willamette Falls Drive also has that alley passing behind it. Believe that's

that's correct.

And did we was there any discussions with the applicant about 11th Street improvements because there is that weird curb juts out on the 11th Street side of this property?

No engineering did not recommend any changes to that section but that's something that again we could discuss putting no parking signs there to restrict people's ability to park too close to the intersection and create that conflict that people have mentioned tonight.

Thank you. Okay, any other questions from commissioners because if not we'll close the public hearing and move on to next steps. Okay I am not seeing any more questions so I'm going to go ahead and close this public hearing. This public hearing is now closed And we'll move on to deliberations. Does any commissioner wish to make a comment or make a motion? And you've been provided with sample motions here on this sheet. But who went first? Commissioner Jones.

I would like to make a motion to addend going forward approval, but with hours outside of the operating school hours of the Willamette School, which if their hours of releasing at a school is 03:45 that puts it at, we can discuss four or 04:30 to make sure that the students can vacate the area as well as the parents, the buses before it becomes hyper congested.

You actually making a motion? It's of

a this and it's a process.

What I do next depends on what the answer to that. My question is, if you're making a motion, we have to go through that process. So you're just saying this is the thing, topic I want

to talk about.

It sounds like he wants to talk about that.

Okay. Then let's have a discussion. Go ahead, Commissioner Evans.

My stance on what Mr. Jones has suggested is I disagree with it, and I would not support that. To more elaborate on, don't think it's fair to us to impose those type of restrictions on a business in that situation. We don't put any of the restrictions. There's plenty of restaurants right down the road from there. We don't put those restrictions on them. So I would not be in support of that.

Commissioner Schultehillon?

Yes, I would tend to agree with Commissioner Evans. I mean, I think that it begs the question of the viability of the business if it's that restricted. And additionally, suspect that most people going in and out of food carts are doing so at hours that kind of sandwich that pickup time. And I completely respect that the kids are playing in the neighborhood, proximity to the school gives concern. However, I just don't think that the traffic in and out is, excuse me, is necessarily kind of butting up against, yeah, when kids are released and when that real density of traffic is happening.

So I would think that putting that kind of limitation on Mr. Lawrence and his business would just I'm not sure that they'd be set up to succeed if they could only be open from quarter to four until 08:00 at night.

I have other comments, but I just wanna give commissioner Jones' time if he wants to discuss anything else before I have my little list here I wanna talk about.

I hear the other commissioners, and thank you. I, however, hear the preponderance of what I'm hearing from public comments. I feel that the evidence presented weighs that that is a viable alternative and is suggested. That is kind of a smart way of going forward of balancing all parties' interests. But I hear what both of you are saying as well. But I still stand by

Alright, Commissioner Evans.

So

during the testimony, I wrote down a number of things that some of the residents had to say. And I I feel like I'm gonna go through them and as talking points, feel like this is how I feel about these subjects. There was a topic that they discussed that talking about policing of people, you know, drinking, parking. And I don't feel like it's the responsibility of this Commission to take those factors into consideration for a conditional use permit. We should be looking at the overall proposal.

The overwhelming response about parking, I disagree with that entirely. Parking we just talked about this less than nine months ago about there are no parking requirements. If Mr. Lawrence feels like his proposed establishment has the parking that it needs, who are we to say yes or no? The parking in that area is not going to get worse or better if we allow or disallow that.

They have issues, and it's not because of the proposed business. It's something that is pervasive outside of this proposal that the city and the residents need to address with the city and how best to handle that. I don't feel like, again, it's the responsibility of this commission to institute mandate parking when we just did away with parking requirements. So that's my take on that. There were some talking points about saturated with restaurants.

And again, who are we to say, well, it's not fair to all these other restaurants allow a new one. That's just I don't think that makes sense. I don't think that it's fair for us to to go, oh, yes, we should consider mister Jones over here in his restaurant and how he's not doing well. It's not our responsibility. And there was one thing about noise ordinances and noise concerns.

And I I I entirely agree that noise is a problem. I I have neighbors who are not very pleasant with their their noise and I I definitely get that. But there is a noise ordinance in place that goes to 10:00 that residents can utilize if they have issues with noise. So that was the list of things I kind of wrote down. In the conditional use permit, the staff had recommended a number of things, and I'm going to just state my opinions on what we should do, and I'm willing to hear feedback based upon those.

The surface area barrier, I entirely agree that there will be an issue with cars pulling in and backing out, trying to utilize the business and possible conflicts with pedestrians. And I definitely hear staff's concern. I feel like their proposal is one proposal, and I would offer another proposal of no parking signage. They could put removable blowers out there in front. There's plenty of other options beyond something that limits their business.

And I feel like it's concerned and we should put some sort of limitations on that, so that the concerns with the city, which I hear can be sustained. The widening of the driveway, I definitely feel like there is reasoning for bringing things up to code. I just don't feel like at this juncture, this is the right place to do that. So I disagree with that one. And it sounds like the permanent blocking of south is I I don't think that's I think there's other viable ways to prevent that.

I like the idea of leaving that turn available because the businesses there will need access to get things in and out. And they can put removal barriers in that can prevent that usage when it's not allowed. So I feel like there's other options beyond blocking them permanently. So that's my notes and I'm willing to defend them for anybody who are discussing with anybody. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Other comments, deliberations, motions? So

I understand the points that Commissioner Evans just made as well as Commissioner Jones. And I think the the the point is this is a conditional use permit application in a mixed use transition zone and that is intended to be a transition between a commercial zone and in this case a residential area. And I am hard pressed to see how this is a transition type business at this location because it's right next to it abuts residential area. And so that's that's my concern. I mean I could go into some of the details on the other.

The adding six inches to the fence I don't care about. The the west driveway, the whole the driveway situations east and west. East I can go with the 24 foot wide. I understand that to have two lanes so they can pass each other going in and out. I guess what I don't understand is that that could also be used as the access point for the truck that needs to clean the grease trap.

If they have a hose or they can have a portable portable vac system to clean out the grease trap as well. There are plenty of places where grease traps are inconvenient and there are other ways of cleaning those out. So I I just think it gets really messy if the the West Driveway is not closed off because the drawings show show seating areas right on top of that driveway. And so so is it gonna be a daily I can't imagine that it would be daily, but but there there has to be a better way to move the the food carts in and out. And that could be through the the East Driveway.

Anyway, I'll I will leave it at that. But I guess I'll I'll say on the West Driveway, I do think a curb has to go in there, especially if we're talking about parking. You can't have parking in front of a not reasonable parking if it's not if there's a ramp, a driveway ramp right in front of you. And especially with we have a sidewalk and bike lane there as well. So there has to be some protection for those for those people from the parking cars. I'll leave it at that.

Commissioner Evans.

Thank you, Chair. So Commissioner Votney, do you I'm just trying to feel out what you're seeing here. And some of the members in the gallery here don't really have privy to see what we're seeing on my computer screen here. So the proposed location, I feel like it does buffer because to the east, if you will, there's still commercial, commercial, commercial, commercial before it gets to residential as you go further east along Wilmington Falls. So this still is there's still area for transitional use.

There's residential on the South Side.

You mean like right in these areas here? Yes. Okay, fair enough.

Any other comments or motions? Commissioner Evans.

So I'm gonna make a motion. But before I do, I just wanna make sure I give other commissioners because I feel like I monopolize everybody's time, and I want to make sure that I don't like steal anybody's thunder and like make anybody feel like they're not having adequate time to say. So I just want to before I propose my solution that I give people opportunities.

Commissioner Watton? I would say, you know, I think the direction that you're going is the direction that when I read the code and I look at it in those fashions that that's what I see too. I mean, can go into the personal side of things of working in the neighborhood, driving that, walking it. I walk it every day. I see people walking. I see morning drop offs that it's that it's chaos.

I also

see that all the streets around it have sidewalks and they have parking. And the parking in general is underutilized right now. I know that doesn't sound that if you live there, I know that it doesn't feel that way, but maybe underutilized isn't the right term, but it's available right now. I would agree with you that I don't think we have the we should be dictating as much as we're being asked to potentially here. Thank you.

I didn't see who was

on the job.

Just for my my own edification, if if any of you happen to know, what is the is are the Willamette Garages also mixed use transitional zoning as well. It's just commercial. I was just curious about the other food cart pod zoning just for my own edification. It's commercial. Thank you.

Commissioner Lavati.

Thank you, Chair. Just to add to that it was I mean since it was a former gas station to that and the zoning didn't change after the gas station closed. So yeah, commercial.

And the story.

Yeah. So and I guess that that brings up I guess the point that I was going to make too is that parking is even though the parking is available and it's available on the side streets and I know that I when I go to the Willamette neighborhood to go out for dinner, I'm regularly parking on a side street because it's infrequent that you can get parking on Willamette Falls Drive. And I would tell you my favorite spot, but then you would go there too. So, but that that brings up my concern is that the South Side Of Willamette Falls Drive is at least in close proximity to this location is a historic neighborhood. And so they don't have sidewalks.

We don't have, you know, real demarcation of where people park on the street. And I think that's that's part of the frustration for the the residents is that you end up parking on grass because the right of way is ill defined. And so it it always for me, I don't I don't try to park on that in that area because I feel as if I'm parking on someone's front yard. So I guess I think that's my comment on parking recognizing that yes it's available but.

If if you look at the improved street improvements on the east side of what's the four way intersection 8th Avenue? That's gonna be 12th. So if in general there are much more up to date street sidewalks and improvements and things like that. The streets are still narrow and it's getting a school bus and a car to pass and one car parked on one side of the street is impossible, I understand that. But there is places to walk instead of walking down the street like we do in the historic district.

There are sidewalks here. And as far as pulling in and pulling out of, you know, if if I'm gonna stop, I'm gonna stop to get something to eat. I'm either I'm gonna stop somewhere, but I'm not gonna stop in several places. So whether I park up the street and get something to eat up the street or down the street, I'm one person in one car. And whether I back out onto Willamette Falls Drive, it's it's a office is down there.

I see a quite a bit of stuff. So that's that's unchanged until we get 02:05 to accept all the afternoon traffic. This is we're in for the long haul as far as traffic is concerned around here.

Commissioner Jones.

Since this is a neighborhood I don't live in and it's because of the parking situation and sometimes we don't always go down there. There was something brought up in the written comments, and it's a question of a proposal of with potentially increased pedestrian traffic in the area near 11th and increased left hand turn queuing, please consider requiring the speed limit sign to be located closer to 10th Street. Additional, consider adding a flashing pedestrian crosswalk sign. What are your thoughts? Is your more boots on the ground?

I I think the sign, if I'm not mistaken, I think the sign's been moved. But I may be thinking of the wrong sign. But as far as the crosswalks, it sounds like there's been petitions locally to have a few lit ones that have been denied or just not not available for payment or to be paid for. So that's a city issue. Obviously, there's some important cross paths there.

I'm also on a committee with the Willamette Downtown Business District. And we're trying to figure out those kind of things, get funding, that's probably not going to happen. We don't have the money, but we are purchasing flags. So when you walk across, pick one up and drop one off. Those are small things, but I agree that it would be nice to have more lit areas there.

I'm not sure if that answers your question or not. I live by the high school and we have one there and it's effective. It's very effective. I'd like to see for a few more of them around town. I agree.

We might be ready for your motion if you are ready.

I'm going do my very best here. And Chair, thank you. I make a motion to approve conditional use permit 20Five-oneDoctor-twentyFive-one subject to the following additional conditions approval. I'm going to butcher this here, but we should go with the staff recommendations of item number one, item number two, item number five, item number six. And then regards to item number three, I'm I'm move that the oh, let me yes, I'm sorry.

That the applicant worked with the city planning department to come up with a mutual agreement solution that is not a cable and rail, but rather either removable bollards, some sort of signage restrictions, as well as some sort of pallets out in front to protect pedestrians that are in use. And I direct staff to prepare a final decision order based on these additional changes and findings in 11/19/2025 hearing staff report.

Could you repeat which staff findings were in and which ones you were changing?

To retain items number one, site plans item number two, engineering standards item number five, close to a driveway approach item number six, refuse recycling enclosure and then modifications as indicated to the service drive barrier.

And not include the drive with?

Correct.

Okay. Do I have a second?

We can also talk about proposed changes to it too.

Maybe you already proposed it.

Oh, we have to move on now?

Yeah. If you don't have a second, we could

Without a second, he can always amend the motion.

Okay. Do you want to amend your motion?

I can if I hear feedback from my following commissioners as to what is giving them heartburn. Because right now I'm not certain what is what the feelings are.

I like the motion as stated by Commissioner Evans.

Okay. Discussion. Alright, seeing no discussion, let's call the vote.

Commissioner Jones. Commissioner Jones.

Aye.

Commissioner Evans? Yes. Commissioner Schulte Hillen? Yes. Commissioner Watten? Yes. Vice Chair Will Watteney? No. And chair Metlin?

Yes.

Alright. Motion passes five one.

Alright. Thank you all.

Let's see here.

So, we'd like to thank all of you who have testified tonight. Your comments have been very helpful. And, thank you, sincerely. It was very helpful to hear everyone's input. And, just a note to say that, you know, we, as a commission, are charged with looking at the code.

And while there's a lot of legitimate concerns, the main concern for us is whether or not that it meets the code, and is therefore we need to approve if it does. So if you'd like to appeal this decision to the city council, you must file an application with the community development department within fourteen days of the mailing of the final decision. With that, that closes our item here, agenda item for this public hearing. Thank you all again. We have a few more items on the agenda, but you obviously don't need to stay if you don't like to. All right. And moving on to our next agenda item is Planning Commission announcements. Do any commissioners have any announcements to make? Mr. Evans?

I'd like to announce that I received my architect's license in Washington recently, so I just just got reciprocity. Also, I'm going to Italy on Tuesday, so I'm taking recommendations on things to do.

Nice.

I know that's not the type of of things you're looking for, but

It just says announcements. It

doesn't say I just the General announcements. You all love to hear what's going on with me.

That's great. And so does now all of the community. Yeah. Commissioner Watney.

So, when I was going through the the meeting notes for this evening, I was reminded that I don't recall seeing a letter from the planning commission to city council regarding regarding our recommendation to city council. And that seems inconsistent with what we've done in the past. And I I know there was a staff report, but there I didn't see a letter from the chair to city council. And maybe I missed it. So I that's a question, but it's also I'm to understand if it wasn't done, why wasn't it done?

I'd I'd be happy to answer that if you can be more specific on what you're speaking to.

It was for the the waterfront plan, sorry.

Oh, yes. So so the letter the letter is for legislative actions when when the planning commission makes a recommendation. Since that wasn't a legislative action.

I disagree. I disagree because I wrote letters, signed letters for like the previous recommendations to city council like the Lamont Falls Drive concept plan and stuff like that. So I'm I'm just trying to understand why we are not doing that and documenting in a formal manner a communication to city council who we are appointed by. So that's going forward I would hope that we reinstitute that.

We we it's it's still in the code legislative adoptions require recommendation and a letter from the planning commission. Again, was not a legislative action. So that's the reason that chair Mettler actually reached out to me and asked me if he needed to sign a letter, and I told him no, he did not. It was the same the same process we used with the housing production strategy last May, which again was went through a resolution process. It wasn't a legislative adoption, So we did not did not request a letter from the Planning Commission, just passed along the recommendation.

Right. Staff announcements?

Yeah, just my typical upcoming events for the Planning Commission. December 3, we will have the Senate Bill fifteen thirty seven briefing that the Planning Commission asked for a few weeks ago. Vision 43 update and also the annual report that Commission passes along the council every year. And then we also will have a little celebration of Chair Mettlund's impending exit from the planning commission after ten years.

Just shy of ten years. I thought about it, but it's like four extra months and I can't do it. Holy smokes. We'll Gary still has me beat. I was like

So we'll have some refreshments or something.

On December 3?

December 3, yes.

Can we push that back to the seventeenth?

We could, actually. Are you going be out of town on the third?

I definitely will be in Italy on the third.

Okay. And

I possibly might seventeenth might be my last one as well.

Okay. Well, we can push it to the seventeenth because we do have a public hearing on the seventeenth for a temporary use permit sales office in a subdivision. So hopefully that won't take too long. And then we can follow-up on the annual report at the seventeenth and do the saying the goodbyes. Then.

You. All right. That's all I have.

Great. Thank you, Darren. And yes, almost ten years. It's a long time.

They don't you stay that long?

I was in my 30s when I started

doing this.

You don't you guys stay that long?

Yeah. You have to reapply.

So, it's not like Okay.

With that, we will adjourn at 08:40 something this meeting. Thank you, everyone.